Do you dance art?
Have you ever visited a gallery or a museum to dance? Probably not. Places where visual art is presented are usually quiet, still, almost motionless, inviting us to linger and reflect.
There is another way. The linking of visual art and various forms of expression opens up new worlds of experience. This is the approach chosen by KOMM!–a transcultural collective of multilingual art and culture professionals and language educators for German as a second language–based in Vienna.
In workshops such as “Do you dance art?”, communication happens not only with words, but “language through art”: movement, gesture, dressing, etc. Experimenting with dance and language in response to Dadaist and Surrealist art creates spontaneous, witty and associative movements.
Participants learn about the exhibited pieces, receive an introduction to gender issues, and discuss the new insights together. Subsequently, they reinterpret the works through their own formal language, use of pantomime and movements to the beat of a metronome. Several forms of communication merge together as the workshop participants learn, invent and use different forms of expression. The founders of KOMM! state:
“Art is a means of reflecting on life’s experiences. That can be in many objects and things”.
Dance connects people and breaks down linguistic and social barriers. Shared interaction at different levels and interpretation of the exhibited artworks encourage and promote an exchange of experiences.
URB_ART spoke to Ramona Rieder and Mareike Heitman, founders and arts educators of KOMM! (www.komm.wien), a Vienna based association which holds workshops with German learners, mainly in museums, combining language and arts education. They also offer training for teachers and conceptual work, e.g. for institutions.
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